So I’ve been pretty busy lately and not having a lot of time to do the things I enjoy.
During this time I’ve been skimming Twitter and, without really digging in to what’s going on, my casual glances seem to be picking up on a theme of some discontent coming about in response to some planned (or already implemented?) changes to some of the Rift souls. I’m am honestly ignorant of the details; something about balancing PvE souls based on PvP? One specific I heard is that the Bard’s reactive heals (Cadence, for instance) will only affect a party, not an entire raid.
Meaning no disrespect to the people who’re upset about the changes but… these are games. If you have the kind of free time to get so immersed in a game that you can be upset about these changes, you should feel thankful.
I have an experiment to try: set aside 5 days and don’t play any games. Instead, spend those 5 days working at your job, cleaning/rearranging your house, filling out forms, talking to lawyers, paying taxes, dealing with your landlord and all the other unpleasant chores that life throws our way. You’ll knock your “To-do” list down and feel so much better about yourself for having all that crap out of the way.
Now go log into Rift and tell me that the changes that have been made have really ruined the game for you.
I could be wrong, but I think instead of being disappointed you’ll be delighted to be in-game having fun again.
<Begin Vaguely Related Anecdote>
Last night I finally sat down to do some gaming about 10:15. This week has sucked and will continue to suck through Sunday, so I was just grateful to have the chance to unwind a bit. I didn’t have long to play but wanted to at least smell the air of Silverwood and do some crafting quests.
I awoke in Sanctum and got the quests from that strange little man that always has work to do. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on when I activated my portal to teleport back to Argent Glade. Mistake on my part.
As the aether settled around me in Argent Glade I opened my eyes to a world where all hell had broken loose. There was an open rift in front of the tavern and another smack-dab in the middle of Quicksilver College. The countryside was awash in rifts, in fact. I wasted no time in joining my fellow Guardians in beating back the denizens of the Plane of Earth.
Alas it was too little too late and the Guardian Wardstone in Argent Glade fell. Only one remained in Sanctum Watch so I ran to the porticulum and returned to Sanctum, and from there out to the Watch. A dozen or more invasions were headed for the Wardstone but were still some ways off. I joined a raid and we made our way up one road, slashing, hacking and burning down invasion force after invasion force. I worried that we were over-extended so I left the raid and rode back to the Watch. Sure enough forces were drawing near along the other road, but happily I wasn’t the only one who’d fallen back. Another raid formed, and another purge of Earth denizens was underway. The Wardstone was saved!
In the meantime other Guardians were gathering to fight epic bosses from the Earth Plane. The community was self-organizing very nicely. We headed to Overwatch Keep to take down the final opponent and just as we arrived, he fell.
After that it was just a matter of mopping up and finally peace returned to Silverwood.
* * *
I looked up. Somewhere in all that I’d gained a level, and I won a purple sourcestone to get myself some shiny new gear with. I had two green gear upgrades in my rifting goodie-bags.
I looked at the clock. It was nearly midnight. Where had the time gone? My legs and back were cramped, my dog was looking neglected, the world seemed a bit fuzzy and indistinct. I had been so focused on the game that I hadn’t moved (aside from fingers on keyboard and mouse). My quick visit to make some Burlap Shoes had turned into an epic confrontation that left me grinning ear-to-ear and thankful for having a way to escape the depressingly mundane life I’d been leading this week, at least for a few hours.
When our grandfathers wanted to have some fun they rolled a hoop down the road with the aid of a stick.
We’re blessed with the chance to play these wonderful games that no other generation has experienced. Take a moment every now and then to appreciate how good you have it.
Good perspective 🙂
Just to clarify something on the bard ‘nerf’: Bard heals now heal five people in the raid, not just the group you are with; prior to that everyone would get the heal. Rift uses ‘smart’ healing, so the five characters (or pets) in most need of the heal receive it. In the scheme of things it’s a rather minor change. (Moving motif of regeneration OTOH farther up in the tree will screw up one of my builds though lol.)
Now just to add my own whine: My chosen ‘soul’ (range rogue) was boned pretty hard right before head start to the point where range rogues are probably the lowest DPS in the game (for dps types that is.) This didn’t prevent me from creating one anyway (ranger/bard) and enjoying the class to cap (hit 50 over the weekend.)
I have noticed however that other classes kill things much faster than I can when in a public group (rifts, invasions), so there is a pretty wide gap there. But I don’t PuG, so I’m not directly affected. Having said that, I am disappointed in the balance approach the devs have been making since beta, namely in some cases ‘over nerfing’ in reaction to either PvP and/or raiding concerns, neither of which I do (or want to do.)
And even though I’m a long time MMO player I’ve also been a bit pissy about ‘my’ class getting a nerf – I mean I get comfortable with the power of my class at X, but then nerf Y happens and I have to spend Z time getting back to X (through gear, AA or whatever mechanic the MMO uses) – but if I enjoy the game enough I eventually get over it.
And just tangentially, I enjoyed the ride to fifty, especially the invasions – particularly defending wardstones, which since most everyone else goes after the rifts can be a real challenge, as your story relates! Sadly at 50 the game switches gears dramatically and it becomes a painful faction grind or the standard instance runs for gear – which I can’t/won’t do since I’m pretty much done with pugging in MMOs. (I can still participate in invasions, which I do, but my character doesn’t benefit per se.)
All of this has led me to switch my account from six months to monthly. I am curious though to see what happens now that the initial bug/balance/security firestorms have been dealt with and the devs have more time for content updates.
@Balckluck wrote:
“Sadly at 50 the game switches gears dramatically and it becomes a painful faction grind or the standard instance runs for gear � which I can�t/won�t do since I�m pretty much done with pugging in MMOs. (I can still participate in invasions, which I do, but my character doesn�t benefit per se.)”
Maybe you don’t know, but you gain faction fighting invasions and closing rifts. So, you are grinding faction when rifting and maybe you have enough faction for buy a nice gear for now.
Anyway, I am level 50 too. I have 3 roles and I change them when I need to, so I am not BOUND to one soul at my calling. Maybe you can try some change and use other role with diferent souls.
At level 50 I am mostly doing (random order, not importance order): crafting, rifting, faction dailly quests, trying kill that ellusive Gnarladon for level 20 story quest, looking for a group for expert instances, trying unlock the quest for gain the Sir title, trying complete collections (shinny!), looking for places for jump for gain titles as “Daredevil”, trying solve the puzzles, looking for cairns, exploring the place.
And PvP and that level 50 raids (greenscale and the new one that opnes today) aren’t at my list for now, I have too much things to do and not enough time.
I have a similar perspective on the nerfs, which affect both my 50 rogue and my warrior alt. They’re interesting to consider, and will necessitate some respeccing, but none of them are going to change the fun of the game for me. If anything, having to learn a new playstyle will stretch me a bit.
Maybe I’m just old. 🙂 I’ve got a husband, kids, and a whole mess of other things that can stress me out from time to time. I just roll with the punches in MMOs. I’ve played these games for so many years that I’ve seen nerfs come and go, OP classes come and go, and entire combat systems revamped for the worse. None of it phases me, because it’s the nature of these games.
Back in my MUD days, an admin could make sweeping changes to the game, even cutting my class out entirely, (which happened to the void paladin in Lost Souls… I logged in one day and had no class at all,) and that was the end. Now that we pay for these games, and developers have some responsibility to make changes for the greater good. If the changes don’t work, they’ll change things again. There are likely LOTS of changes to come.
We’re still in the early days of Rift. Chances are that it’ll look very different in a few years than it looks now.